(Humble) Author's Note: Guess who is back? I'm reposting this story for a few reasons but the most important reason being Seinoa is such a small pairing that we really need all the fics we can get. I don't think anyone can argue with that reasoning. So, here's to all my Seinoa brothers and sisters. I won't be deleting this gain. Girl Scout's honor.

Rinoa Heartilly was not a coward.

Her father had told her that more times than she could count. The stern military commander would not even allow his daughter to cry over a scraped knee. Even after her mother died and they barely spoke, she lived by those simple words. She was not a coward.

It made her wonder why, if fear was such a stranger, she hesitated to let herself into Seifer's room.

It wasn't fear of his temper – she had long ago learned how to wrangle that. It wasn't fear of anything he might say – there was nothing, at this point, that he could say to hurt her.

She had run through this and a thousand other scenarios in her mind a dozen times over already. She had already conjured up the heated monologues, the razor-sharp barbs he could use to drive home his points. She had pictured herself winning, and losing, and was at the point where she was starting to feel numb. Even being here in Balamb Garden felt surreal. It was like just another dream – just another play-through in her mind that she would be able to snap out of as soon as Squall appeared at her side.

Squall. Silent and steadfast as always. He was like her father in some ways – protective, distant. But those light blue eyes – as impenetrable as steel – never left her.

He was independent, but he was always afraid of losing her. She realized that when he held her sometimes and gripped her arms a little too tight – as if she might slip away, proving to be only a specter of his imagination. A desperate need to be loved made manifest.

She wasn't going to leave him. But she also could not stand to have these loose ends in her life any longer. She was finding it harder to sleep at night. The more she thought about Seifer, the more distant she acted. That wasn't fair to Squall. It was not fair to her – she had to get some closure. Surely, she was not the only one who needed it… How much sleep had Seifer lost over this? Maybe she wasn't afraid of him. It could be that she was afraid of learning that he had not actually given her a second thought since they had last parted.

Or maybe it was just that she did not trust herself, or the amount of self-control she would be able to exercise once they finally set eyes on each other.

If he ever returned home. She knew he always came back late, but she was beginning to get antsy. Rinoa paced, trying to think of anything else and failing. She could only play the scenarios over and over again in her head. She went from the worst possible outcome and worked her way up towards the best, hoping to build up some sort of positive atmosphere.

She didn't hear him walk in, but she heard his black leather boots creak as he finally stopped – barely inches away. She turned around and he was standing there – tall, with his blonde hair swept back and his eyes, blue and green and fathomless like the ocean, boring straight into her.

A slim cigarette was hanging from his firm, serious mouth. She couldn't even remember how many times she had told him to stop smoking.

"Rin," her name was barely audible on his breath. A trickle of grey smoke chased it, escaping from his pale lips.

Only he had ever called her 'Rin'. No one else had ever tried. And she wouldn't have let them get away with it if they did.

Rinoa set her jaw, meeting his deep gaze with her own guarded brown eyes. She studied him critically, taking in every detail, her posture soldier-rigid until she gave up a heavy gusting sigh. "We need to talk," she said.

He smirked. She saw the corner of his mouth go up in that infuriating way.

"Of course," he plucked the cigarette from his lips, stretching and putting his arms behind his head as he looked down at her. "I know what this is about." He let his arms down, turning away and heading towards a more comfortable place to sit. It was as if he assumed this was going to take a while.

Rinoa narrowed her eyes, following him at a quick pace.

"What do you mean?" She demanded sharply. "'You know what this is about'?"

"Well, you want to talk about us, right? What we used to be, I guess, before everything went to shit." He waved his hand, curls of grey smoke winding around his fingers. She had forgotten how much she hated the smell of tobacco.

He popped the wet end of his cigarette back into his mouth and folded his arms, waiting for her to say something.

Rinoa opened her mouth defiantly and then closed it again, clenching her teeth so hard that she was afraid they would crack. How dare he make assumptions – but then again, what else did she expect? "Yes," she hated to admit he was right. "I just want us both to have some closure. Some peace. Resolution."

"Hm," he snorted. "You know, I have been waiting a long time to ask you a lot of things." There was tension building up in his shoulders as if there was too much pent-up anger and it was just waiting to explode – to break apart his skin and send parts of him scattering across the room.

He could not read the expression on her face. She spoke of peace – but she always did. She used generic words with him now. There was nothing genuine that he could see through the haze that was sliding over his vision – red and angry, he wanted to explode.

He knew he couldn't vent the entirety of his anger and hurt onto her. But he was absolutely going to tell her exactly how he was feeling. He was going to give her everything she came here for.

"What about me, then?" He didn't even give her another chance to respond before launching into his tirade. "What made you think it was all right to waste my time? And how you could just walk away after everything, arms linked with that kid. Yeah, he's a kid. He's a boy playing at being a man, but he isn't even close to being what you need. I am a man. I was already what you needed. It kills me how you can be so naïve still. How you are everything a woman should be…" he nearly bit the end off of his cigarette. "But all of your best traits get buried underneath how stupid you like to act. As if that will get you anywhere – as if will lead to anything more than another heartbreak!"

Another.

Her own anger was building. He could say what he wanted about her – and he would be mostly justified, but the remarks about Squall were eating away at her stony resolve. The way he said such things – as if nothing about Squall was worthy of respect. When she knew damn well that despite the bad blood between them, at some point there had been mutual admiration for each other's prowess, of each other's skills as a fighter. To imply that Squall was nothing more than a boy was insulting in so many ways. Seifer was good at disparaging others in order to lift himself up onto a pedestal. He was always out to prove his superiority in every way. But to talk like Squall had not fought tooth and nail to prove himself, to earn every scrap he had ever brought to the table…

Rinoa's chest ached - too tight to breathe. Her throat burned and tears were stinging the back of her eyes, but she kept it all down. She swallowed her feelings as she had plenty of times in the past. She would not give Seifer the satisfaction of even seeing her tear up. She was not going to break down and cry in front of him.

She let the tears evaporate – transforming into rigid, hot anger. She balled up her fists until her nails were digging into her soft palms, but she did not waiver in front of him.

It occurred to Seifer that he had never seen her cry. At least… Not for him.

She was strong. She was a fighter. Maybe that was why he liked her. Liked. Likes. He still did. There was nothing even remotely past tense about his feelings.

They stood in ugly silence for a moment. Their arguments were always like this. Like a feral cat positioned against a barnyard dog – seemingly uneven, but equally matched.

Her silence was getting to him. Seifer took another long drag from his cigarette, watching it get shorter and shorter as more of it burned away. He tapped it and grey ash dribbled onto the carpet.

Another pause squeaked by, and Seifer released the breath he had been holding. Smoke billowed from his mouth and his nose and he crumpled up the smoldering remains of the cigarette in his fist, pitching it to the ground and grinding it out underneath his heel. He wasn't going to say he was sorry. Because he wasn't. He wasn't sorry for a single minute of their relationship, despite the hell he put her through in and out of it. He held her gaze, hoping she would understanding. Hoping that somehow there still existed enough of a connection that a fleeting glance could tell her all she needed to know. There was so much unspoken existing between them. So many heavy, difficult truths and not a single, resigned sorry among them.

Rinoa met his eyes, pulling his cold, ocean blue into the warmth of her compassionate dark brown. She did not want to put him on edge like this. She wanted to give him as much security as possible – so that he could know she understood him. She knew that somewhere, deep down, he did have regrets. He was sorry for some things.

Seifer would never admit to regretting that he ever fought against her and the others during the war. He even regretted fighting Squall. Some things, of course, could not be undone. The damage was there, but she knew, at least, he was sorry.

Seifer knew their relationship had gone to shit long before everything else. He wanted to tell her that he was sorry for being himself. For being so difficult to live with, for being so hot-headed and so cold. He knew how much she hated emotional distance. Maybe that was part of why he could never forgive Squall because Seifer could not look past his own faults long enough to see the virtues in someone else. Squall was reserved. He often came across as cold. But he was different with Rinoa.

Seifer had never quite learned how to differentiate his relationship with Rinoa from his relationship with other people. There had begun the disconnect, and that small blister in their relationship had festered, spreading an infection that mutated into something much worse.

She had never seen him at such a loss for words. She was used to putting up with this from Squall. But Seifer had always been different. He had always been loud, boisterous – temperamental. To feel his vulnerability with such clarity was enough to shake her down to the core.

"You know, Seifer," she finally spoke, unable to take any more without easing his turmoil, "you are a good guy." A smirk tugged at the corner of her lips. "You might be a bit stubborn, but you're a good guy."

He stared at her for a moment, astonished, and then his lips broke out into a grin. He threw back his head and laughed, relieved enough that he thought his knees might weaken and collapse. When he looked at her again, his eyes were glittering.

Only she could insult him, at all, and avoid invoking his unpleasant ire. Rinoa reached out – not quite touching him, her hand hovering in the air for a moment as she took a few shallow breaths. She was feeling light-headed, again stuck in the sensation that this might all be a dream. She hadn't really ever played it out like this before. Her imagination had never led her to something even close to this level of mutual understanding.

"Hey," she said, lowering her hand again. "Do you remember…" she swallowed hard. She almost said 'Do you remember how it used to be?' But that did not seem the kindest choice of words for the moment.

She smiled. "Do you remember when I used to sneak out with you? When my dad was asleep or gone, I would climb out the kitchen window and we would star-gaze?"

His shoulders relaxed. He raked a hand through his blonde hair. "Yeah," he said, "and I kept telling you to just use the back door. But you said something about how the hinges needed to be oiled and the screeching would wake him up."

"Yes," she laughed, her relaxing knee bumping against the leather chair that was resting near. She wanted to sit down, but there was something that prevented her. There was something about being so close to him. If either of them wanted to, they could have opened up their arms and pulled the other into an embrace. Her heart was thudding, but she pressed on. She liked the little rush that the memories brought back. She liked the genuine smile that seemed to hover on his lips, not quite visible enough to declare it was actually present. She wanted this moment to stretch on forever. It finally felt at least comfortable.

"Those hinges were awful," she said. "But at least I could hear it every time he came home. I don't know why he never used the front door. He was weird about that."

"There was also that time," Seifer interjected, "when I tried to teach you how to use my gunblade."

"You thought that was such a great idea!" Rinoa giggled, covering her mouth to stifle the bubbly sound.

"It would have been a much better idea if you hadn't completely missed the mark and shot above my head. You nearly gave me a heart-attack, I hope you realize."

"You've mentioned it a few times since then," she lowered her hand back down to her lap, grinning. "I've never seen you jump so high." Seifer scoffed good-naturedly, folding his formidable arms across his chest. "I wasn't that scared."

"You were whiter than a sheet and I knew I was going to have to take you to the hospital," she teased.

Another pause.

"And then there was that time," she said, "when your car broke down."

He nodded. "It was raining."

"It was pouring. You let me hold your coat up over my head and you were absolutely soaked because we had to walk all of that way to the nearest motel."

"And we couldn't stop laughing," he added, "because even with my coat, you were soaked. And we both…"

"…Looked so ridiculous," she said. "We looked like drowned rats, and when we showed up at the desk, the clerk looked at us like we were absolutely insane."

"When we told him that we wanted a room, I thought he was going to call the authorities."

"Good thing for us that he didn't…imagine what my dad would have said!"

They laughed together. The good memories were just as bountiful as the bad ones, which they were both doing their best to ignore. They skirted around each and every unpleasant moment from the past that would have brought the mood down.

The laughter faded out, and silence filled the gulf once more. Seifer was trying his best not to think about the worst parts. He had put her in danger so, so many times thanks to Ultimecia– and he still put her in danger.

Seifer realized that he wanted to kiss her. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and pull her close. He wanted to press his lips against hers and reignite the spark just enough to rekindle the flame that had burned so brightly and dangerously between them once upon a time. He wondered, briefly, if a single kiss could do it all. If a single kiss could erase everything bad about him in her mind.

He knew there was too much. But he wanted it so badly. He wanted to press his lips to hers and place his hand on the small of her back. He wanted to feel her body against his – and was almost afraid that somehow, the shape of her had forgotten the shape of him. That they would no longer fit together as if they had been made for each other. They had been made for each other.

He had told her, earlier, that he was the guy she needed. But he wanted more than that. He wanted to be the man that she deserved.

There were reasons he was so bitter – why he didn't think Squall was a good match. Sure, Squall had prowess with a weapon. Seifer could acknowledge that. But he was still just a bloody-knuckled orphan at heart. There was still something in him that was a lost orphan boy. Seifer didn't think it was fair to put it on Rinoa to help him work through that. She had a lot she was working through on her own. And she had always been way too empathetic. She took on burdens that were not hers to bear. At his core, Seifer wanted to believe that was the entirety of her relationship with Squall – a pity project.

But he knew it wasn't true. And he knew it was dangerous to even think that. He would give himself too much hope if he ever let himself believe there as any room for her to return to him.

Better that he let himself think she was happy. It stung more, but it would end up hurting him less.

He wondered, briefly, if she would want him to kiss her. As close as she was standing, he could smell the faint traces of perfume that still clung to her neck and her wrists. She smelled like wildflowers.

He almost did it. He almost reached out and put his hand on the small of her back – the precious dip right above the curve of her backside. That beautiful little arch.

Before he could even make a move to do so, she smiled up at him again. It was an unfamiliar expression – not at all like the smiles she used to give him. The ones that he used to see were mischievous, sly, they made her eyes sparkle and they lit up her entire face. He supposed those were gone, now, reserved only for Squall. That thought tugged at his chest, leaving a familiar ache. Still, it was nice to see her smile. She had not smiled at just him in so long. With nothing passing between them – just a sweet, tender expression on her face that had been brought to life just by looking at him.

She reached out again, this time resting a small hand on his shoulder. She didn't say anything, squeezing him fondly as she walked past him. He realized that she was leaving, and his heart sank into the pit of his stomach.

She paused in her path for the door, turning to face him once more. Seifer hoped she could not read his desperation as he drank in every detail of her face, not wanting to leave this with anything less than a perfect likeness etched into his brain.

She had something to say. Whatever it was, it took Rinoa a moment to muster up the courage to let it out.

"I will always care for you, Seifer." She said, and the words sounded like they took every breath out of her. "And what's more; I forgive you. Now I want you to forgive yourself. I want you to be happy."

He wanted to respond. But his words were stuck in his throat. Too little, too late – she was gone before he could even open his mouth. He saw the door close before he even registered that she had left – that beautiful little frame of hers slipping out like wind through a crack in a window frame.

She was taking a small part of his heart with her. But it had never truly belonged to him. It would be with her, irrevocably, forever.

But it was all right. He knew he had a small part of her heart as well; a part that not even Squall would ever possess.